


Hard to Say

by StephirothWasTaken



Series: No Magic No Kingdom AU [7]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Disabled Character, Even though it's not a birthday fic, Gen, Good Dad Regis, Good Parent Regis Lucis Caelum, Happy Birthday Noctis, I'm Bad At Titles, No Magic No Kingdom AU, Paraplegia, Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:14:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26194726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StephirothWasTaken/pseuds/StephirothWasTaken
Summary: Before she passed away, Aulea filled a scrapbook full of all the things she wanted to tell her son.Fifteen years later, Regis finds the courage to let his son read those words.
Relationships: Clarus Amicitia & Regis Lucis Caelum, Noctis Lucis Caelum & Regis Lucis Caelum
Series: No Magic No Kingdom AU [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1307753
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	Hard to Say

**Author's Note:**

> Posting this earlier than usual because my Internet sucks.
> 
> I'm sure I forgot some tags.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Regis would have given anything to have his boy stay at the Lucis Caelum manor forever, but he was all too aware of a young man’s desire to spread his wings. Fifteen was far too young for someone to live on their own, but he had been leaving Noctis alone at the manor for quite some time now. It would not differ from normal, except the location. A modern apartment would be far easier to live in than a massive building far older than the combined ages of its occupants.

“We’re here, Reggie,” Clarus declared from the driver’s seat, turning around to look at him. “Are you sure you want to head up by yourself?”

“I’ll be fine, Clare,” Regis assured him. “Just enjoy your day off.”

“Yeah, now that you’ve finally given me one.”

Regis chuckled as he opened the car door.

“I don’t ask you to work overtime with me.”

“I know, I know.”

Regis grabbed his cane, and he climbed out of the car. He grimaced at the sharp pain in his knee, and he leaned heavily against the cane. It was proof that he had been working too hard for a while. Once he was steady, he reached into the car for his briefcase.

“Be careful,” Regis said before he closed the door, and he waved at his long-time friend.

“Yeah, you, too, Reg.”

Clarus waited for Regis to make it into the apartment building before he drove away. Regis wished a stuttering daytime guard a good afternoon, and he used the elevator to make it to Noctis’s floor. It was not the penthouse because Noctis had insisted he get a “normal” apartment, but it was still near the top and worth more than most houses within the city.

If Regis was going to pay for his son’s apartment, he was going to get him a damn good one no matter what that son asked for.

Strangely, Regis felt his chest squeeze at the realization that Noctis might not like to see him there. He had not even called ahead to warn him he was coming to visit him. The boy would be too polite to turn him away, but he had asked to get his own apartment to have privacy.

Regis pressed the doorbell next to Noctis’s apartment door, and he leaned against his cane as he waited for Noctis’s voice on the intercom.

There was a beep, and his boy’s beautiful blue eyes appeared on the little screen next to the door.

“Dad?” Noctis said.

“Good afternoon, my son.”

“Uh, afternoon. I’ll get the door.”

The screen turned off with a beep. Regis wished he had been able to tell his son’s mood with that brief interaction. He heard the locks on the door, and there was a soft grunt as he undid the chain lock with the help of a grabber.

Noctis opened the door, revealing messy black hair and his beautiful blue eyes again. Regis could not help the smile on his face as warmth spread through his chest. He and Aulea had created the most handsome boy on Eos.

“Hey, Dad,” Noctis said while his father stared at him like a fool. “Everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine. I just wanted to bring something over to you.”

Noctis’s shoulders—Regis wondered when they had gotten so broad—lowered with relief. He still wore his school uniform. His tie was loose around his neck, and he had undone the top two buttons of his white shirt. Blue eyes lowered to the briefcase in his hand.

Noctis pulled open the door all the way, revealing he sat in his wheelchair in his underwear.

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

“No, no! Come on in. I’ll go turn on the coffee. Unless you want tea.”

“Coffee would be lovely.”

Regis appreciated tea, but it would not be enough to satisfy his caffeine addiction.

He stepped into the apartment as Noctis pushed himself into the kitchen area.

The apartment had an open plan, and Noctis and his friends had set up the living room to be the perfect place for gaming: a massive TV, too comfortable couches, and a coffee table to hold their snacks. They had left some empty soda cans sitting on the table, but it was not nearly as messy as Noctis’s room used to get.

They had placed the dining table near a wall outlet so Noctis could use small appliances since he had declined having the counters lowered.

Regis sighed in relief as he sat on the couch, and he rubbed his swollen knee.

“How have you been, Noctis?”

“Fine. How’s Carbuncle?”

“Healthy, but he misses you.”

“Aw, man. I wish I could have brought him with me.”

“And how’s school?”

“Okay. Iggy and Prom have helped me a lot with my grades.”

“That’s good.”

Regis was glad to hear Noctis had so many people to help him with school. He wanted to get the boy tutors, but Noctis had never wanted them around, insisting on going to a normal school and having study dates with other students—or Ignis and Prompto, at least.

Once Noctis was finished with the coffeepot, he joined his father in the main room. There was no sign of Regis’s unexpected presence bothering him. He looked tired with the dark circles under his eyes, but Lucis Caelums were always tired. It was one of their many curses.

Regis pulled his briefcase into his lap, and he opened it, revealing a pale blue leather book with “Noctis Lucis Caelum” embossed in gold on the front. He ran a hand across the words, smiling as he remembered the day his late wife had come home with it. She had looked so tired from the pregnancy, but she had looked so happy while she had explained all the things she had hoped to put into her son’s scrapbook.

“I should have shown you this years ago,” Regis admitted as he took out the scrapbook. “It’s been selfish of me to hold on to it for so long without letting you know about it.”

“What is it?” Noctis asked, and he leaned forward to get a better look at it.

“It’s your baby book. Aulea had always loved to make little scrapbooks. I know you’ve seen the one she made of our wedding. When she discovered her pregnancy, she wasted no time planning one for you.”

Regis looked at Noctis, finding the sadness that always filled his eyes at the mention of his mother. She had died before he could remember, and someone he had considered a second mother had died in the same accident that had made him paraplegic.

Regis handed the scrapbook to Noctis, who took it in his hands the same way one might grab an ancient relic. Tears filled his eyes, and Regis felt a lump form in his throat. He cleared it away before he spoke:

“I have to admit that I neglected to keep up with it over the years, but I tried to make up for it. Thank the Six for Prompto’s love for photography. Most of the recent photos I took from him.”

“You helped make it?” Noctis asked, voice thick with barely suppressed emotion.

“Most of it, but unfortunately, I’m not quite as artistically inclined as your mother.”

Noctis opened the scrapbook, revealing a picture of Regis with his arms around a woman with exhausted blue eyes and the brightest smile, and in her arms was a tiny baby with black hair jutting in all directions. It was a picture Regis had in his office, but Noctis’s full name written in Aulea’s beautiful calligraphy was one he rarely got to show off. She had glued the picture onto pale blue paper with wavy edges, and there were drawings of flowers, cutesy shoes, and other things all over the page.

Noctis flipped through the next few pages, where Aulea had pasted pictures of her growing stomach and the ultrasounds from the doctor appointments. She had also left notes for Noctis, letting him know she forgave him for the heartburn and the morning sickness, treasured every flutter and kick she felt in her belly, and could not wait to meet him. Except for the wavering breaths Noctis took, they were both silent as he read the words.

Regis had to admit he felt like he was intruding on his son’s special moment with his mother, but he had much to explain about the book once they reached the last page Aulea had made for him.

When the coffee machine beeped, they both jumped. Noctis chuckled, and he swiped at his eyes.

“Ah, perhaps I should get that,” Regis said as he shifted to stand from the couch.

“No, Dad, you rest your leg. I’ll be right back. Besides, Ignis has been really grilling into me how to fix it up right.”

Regis accepted the baby book from Noctis, who went to the coffee machine to pour them a cup with a few ingredients he could not quite identify from his distance. His tongue poked out of his mouth as he worked. Once the task was done, Noctis carried their mugs on a tray in his lap, and he carried it to Regis, moving his wheels slowly to avoid spilling the warm liquid.

“Yours is almond,” Noctis said as he held out his mug to him.

“Ah, my favorite. Thank you.”

Regis took a sip of the creamy coffee. He had no idea if it was because his darling boy had made it himself, but he thought it was delicious. Noctis gave him one of his embarrassed half-smiles when he told him so.

“Are you ready to continue?” Regis asked as he set his coffee on the coffee table.

Noctis nodded. He put his mug next to Regis’s, and he accepted the baby book back from him. The next page he turned to was the two-page collage of his first day of life. Aulea looked so tired in all their pictures together, and Regis looked both amazed and terrified. They were all pictures he had seen before, but Noctis smiled as he looked at them.

After that were pages with more pictures of Noctis and notes of his size and growth progress for the next few weeks. There were a few notes that gushed about Noctis’s toothless smile and his tiny toes.

When Noctis reached the sixth month mark, the style of the page changed. There were no cutesy doodles around the pages, and the notes were printed instead of handwritten. The smile that had been on Noctis’s face faded.

Noctis had been only six months old when his mother had passed away, and that was when Regis had had to take over the baby book.

Regis had been terrible at it, especially at the beginning when he barely been functioning while mourning his wife, and his approach to it was less personal. He put in all the major milestones, crawling, walking, and graduating elementary school, and he documented their family trips. There were even a few notes left in there, letting him know how loved he was.

As Noctis flipped through the pages, he pointed out the pictures of his favorite moments together, and the smile returned to Noctis’s face. Tears formed in his eyes again, but Regis was glad to see them for a happier reason than earlier.

“I can tell this one is from Prompto,” Noctis said, pointing at a picture of him with a fishing rod and smiling at the camera.

“Ah, yes, you look happy,” Regis said. “You never look happy when I take pictures.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is so. Look at this one. I took that one, and you’re scowling at me.”

Regis tapped a picture of Noctis leaning his elbows on a restaurant table, looking bored.

“Come on! The service was so slow there! And that’s definitely not a scowl.”

“Oh, and what about this one?”

Regis pointed at a picture of Noctis sitting in front of a newly erected statue in the middle of a park, and he looked less than pleased to be there.

“I mean, sure, I don’t look happy, but—”

“And this one?”

It was one of Noctis sitting on his bed, hair a wreck about his head, and he wore only a pair of boxers. He was giving his father his best glare.

“All right, fine. You have the worst timing for pictures.”

Regis chuckled. He leaned back in the sofa with the coffee in his hands, and he watched Noctis continue to look through the scrapbook. His smile on his face made his heart warm.

There was a time when he had thought he would never see that smile again, and he treasured it every time. Regis pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, and he snapped a picture of Noctis—a few times because he left his finger in one and then moved too quickly in another.

“You get the picture you wanted yet?” Noctis asked.

“Not yet. Look up and smile.”

Noctis did. Prompto would have known how to get the lighting just right, but Regis was proud of himself for it all the same.

“Now you can’t complain that I never smile in your pictures.”

“My, what a handsome boy,” Regis said, ignoring what he had said in favor of embarrassing him.

“Dad.”

“Looks an awful lot like me, too.”

“I do not.”

Regis chuckled as he tucked his phone away. Noctis rolled his eyes, but he went back to looking through the scrapbook, pausing to read the notes he had left for him.

“Will you be busy later today?” Regis asked, that strange tightness in his chest returning.

“I have some homework I have to get through, but that’s it. I don’t have any plans.”

It felt like an eternity passed as he waited for Noctis to reach the end of the scrapbook. He tapped the side of the mug with his finger. When Noctis closed the scrapbook and held it out to his father, his chest squeezed even tighter.

“Thanks, Dad,” Noctis said, “for showing me that. I really appreciated seeing the stuff Mom wrote for me.”

“She loved you so much, Noctis,” Regis said. “I am sorry for how long I’ve kept it from you.”

“It’s all right, I mean. There was a lot of stuff you had to put in there, too.”

“Still have to put in there. I don’t plan on stopping until you graduate from university, at least.”

Noctis’s eyes shifted away for a moment, mouth pressing into a thin line as he thought. Regis drained the last of his coffee, and he stood from the couch.

“Well, I should probably get going,” he said.

Noctis’s eyebrows pressed together.

“You’re leaving already?”

“Yes, well, I don’t want to intrude.”

“You’re not intruding on anything, Dad. You can stay if you want.”

“No, I already arrived unannounced.”

“It’s okay. If you’re not busy, we can hang out for a while. Iggy’s not coming today, but I’ve got plenty of leftovers in the fridge I can make for dinner.”

Warmth eased the tightness in Regis’s chest.

“You can ask to hang out every once in a while, Dad,” Noctis said, smiling. “I love you, and I like spending time with you.”

If Clarus had been there, he would have guffawed like a fool for the tears that filled Regis’s eyes just then. His boy had just said the most beautiful words a father could have ever asked for. He leaned down, and he wrapped his arms around his son, ignoring the painful pins and needles erupting in his knee.

“I love you, too, Noctis,” he said, and he squeezed him.

Noctis gave him an awkward pat on the back. Regis knew he hugged him a beat too long when Noctis asked him:

“So, are you staying, or…?”

Regis pulled away, and his vision was blurry as he gazed down at his son. He sat back down on the couch.

“Yes, I can stay a while longer.”

“Cool.”

“I could help you with your homework, if you need help, that is.”

“It’s just grammar and history, nothing too hard, but I appreciate the offer.”

“I can hold flash cards for your Tenebraen lessons.”

Noctis chuckled.

“Yeah, I guess I should study that, too. Do you want more coffee?”

“Not at the moment.”

“Okay. I’ll just grab my stuff. You can watch whatever you want while I work, if that’s okay?”

“Your schoolwork is very important.”

“Yeah, be right back. I’ll grab the ice pack, too. I think Iggy left that in my bathroom.”

“That would be much appreciated.”

Noctis pushed his wheelchair to his bedroom. Regis let himself grin like a fool as he replayed Noctis’s words in his head. It had worried him that Noctis would want time alone, and while he would not take this as permission to come and go as he pleased, he was grateful he had not royally messed things up with his son that the boy wanted nothing to do with him.

Regis grabbed a throw pillow, and he placed it beneath his swollen knee. He leaned back, and he sighed, feeling far lighter than he had when he had arrived.

**Author's Note:**

> At the beginning of the year, I didn't want to worry about posting any pics for the boys' birthdays, but then I came up with a few ideas for Noctis's birthday (I've already posted the other one). I almost feel bad for not coming up with anything for Gladio and Iggy.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Comments and kudos are much appreciated!


End file.
